It feeds a voracious appetite for attention. Last year Robin Givhan of the Washington Post wrote of Balmain: "The French fashion house is always ostentatious and sometimes ******. The fashion world's ambivalence towards Rousteing is a measure of its conflicted feelings towards much in contemporary culture. When I once deployed it – as a compliment – in a 2015 Vogue menswear review that declared "Rousteing is confidently negotiating a fine line between extravagance and vulgarity", I was told that Rousteing was aggrieved. The New York Times' fashion critic Vanessa Friedman reckoned this collection appropriate for "dressing for the captain's dinners on a cruise ship to Fantasy Island". Yet for every famous fan there is a member of the fashion establishment who will sniff over coffee in Le Castiglione that Rousteing's crowd is declassé and his aesthetic best described by that V-word. Immediately after this show, in that backstage hubbub, Kim Kardashian told me: "I thought it was very powerful…I loved the sequins, and I loved all the big chain mail belts – that was probably my favourite." Rihanna, all the Kardashians, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber – a royal flush of modern celebrity aristocracy – all champion him. ![]() Rousteing has attracted (but not bought, as other, far bigger houses do) patronage from contemporary culture's most significant influencers. Under Rousteing, Balmain has become the most controversial fashion house in Paris. So, this is Balmain." And then the show began. And I have had too many haters during the last three years to defend myself again. But whatever I do, even if I cover up my girls, it is like people can say I am ******. Balmain has its place in fashion."Īnd the clothes? "There is a lot of fluidity. Because there is no point anymore in fighting about boundaries and limits in fashion. I feel like in my six years here before this, I have tried to fight so many battles. The inspiration is what I feel, and what I feel now is peace, light and serenity. ![]() "There is no theme," said Rousteing in his fast, French-accented lilt. We asked him to tell us about the collection (for that's what fashion editors always ask). Target identified, he led us to the board upon which photographs of every outfit were tacked. Wearing a belted, black silk tuxedo and a focused expression that accentuated his razor-sharp cheekbones, Rousteing resembled a sensuous hit man. The crowd parted as Rousteing swept through. Along the marble hallway of a hôtel particulier in the 8th arrondissement, long-limbed clusters of supermodels were gamely tolerating final applications of leg-moisturiser, make-up touch-ups and minutely precise hair interventions from squads of specialists as fast and accurate as any Formula 1 pit-stop team. Shortly after 3pm on September 29, 31-year-old Olivier Rousteing strode through the shimmering, fleshy backstage area at Balmain's Spring 2017 Paris Fashion Week show.
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